CERA4 is the sonification of a spherical sculpture. The sculpture is constructed by an irregular, spherical triangulation of metal struts. It comprises 60 nodes which form 112 polygons. The positions of the nodes were measured by mathematicians from the Technical University of Dortmund and converted into a three-dimensional coordinate system. The result was a virtual model of a hollow sphere. In a sound installation at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf the physical sculpture was then acoustically evoked by the help of 26 cubically arranged loudspeakers. In the installation one could listen to original sounds of the sculpture, which were recorded and sampled by strucking the 60 nodes with different mallets. The calculated node points were mapped into a 3D sound field, so the sounds could be spatially distributed according to the physical condition of the metal sphere.

The sonification follows the paths along the nodes and rods. This is done by an algorithmic pattern system, which allows to scan the sphere's paths. Applying rules to the system determines to always follow either the longest or the shortest available rod or instead to choose a random path. Furthermore, characteristics, like the distances between the nodes or the number of neighbors a node has, were mapped to the playback-speed of the samples. This enables to not just hear the paths spatially but also in variations of pitch and duration.

Íngrid Pons i Miras, Will-Jan Pielage, Sebastian Fecke Diaz, Joseph Baader, Tobias John - concept, composition, realization

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The title synchor (syn 'together', choros 'space') is a neologism based on the word synchronous (syn 'together', chronos 'time'). Synchronicity expresses that something happens at the 'same time' in a different place. But there is no expression in the German language for the inversion, that is, that something happens at a different time in the 'same place'. 

During a one week residency in the Italian town Montepulciano in July 2021 we were developing a method to record multiperspective sound walks. Those are meant as an incomplete, subjective and improvised documentation of the town and its life. 

Based on the recorded walks we want to create an acoustic map which functions as a musical composition as well as an ethnography of the site. Merging three different perspectives into one generates subtle shifts in the clean and "natural" documentary character of a soundscape recording, which stresses the subjective characteristics of ethnographic documents. 

We see those sound walks as a form of improvisation with a fixed starting point, certain rules and often (but not always) an idea of a direction or certain places to go to. Besides those predefined parameters we decide over the exact path to go, about the speed, about how long to stay in one place or about how close we pass by certain acoustic occurrences, while walking. 
In the composition we want to create an imaginary path through the city by combining material from the different walks we did in Montepulciano. Therefore, two kind of transitions between spaces - the ones made by our movements of walking and the ones created with crossfades during the postproduction - are equally handled tools. This enables us to connect spaces, which are actually not connected and create a new path, which becomes more and more surreal towards the end of the piece. 

Multiperspective Soundwalks 
To combine our three individual listening perspectives and to point out the subjective characteristic of field recordings we developed a method to record multiperspective sound walks. We worked as a group of three performers, however, it's also possible to extend this method to more people. The method is simple but somehow twisted: 

Each person is equipped with a binaural recording setup (Soundman OKM II). What makes it special is that you're wearing the microphones in the ear as you would do with headphones. If you listen to those recordings with headphones it creates an impressively realistic image of the recorded space. But also on a stereo system the reproduction of the acoustic space works quite well. As each performer is wearing those in- ear-microphones, we are able to catch three slightly different perspectives onto a situation and its space. While recording, the three of us are walking behind each other in a line, which simply means one is walking ahead and the others are following. Each follower keeps a constant distance to the person ahead. We measured the distance in time which enables us to apply the following twist in the post production: 

First of all we sync the three recordings according to one sound event which occurs in all three recordings. Therefore we produced a clap before each walk which we can now use for the syncing process. After the recordings are synced in time we shift them exactly by the time interval we used as a distance to each other while walking. What we get as a result is not anymore a sync in time, but a sync in space. Playing and listening now to the three recordings we hear the same space in each recording but at a slightly different time.

concept, composition, realization: 
Joseph Baader 
Sebastian Fecke Diaz 
Lambert Windges

4. Cucina, Palazzo Ricci

3. Cantina, Scuola Di Musica, Palazzo Comunale

2. Strade Di Campagna, Chiesa Di Santa Maria Delle Grazie

1. Palazzo Ricci, Chiesa Del Gesù, Caffè Poliziano

Please check out the whole album released at the fantastic combustão lenta records:
combustaolenta.bandcamp.com/album/forgue

Paul Müller Reyes (Modular Synthesizer)
Sebastian Fecke Diaz (Organ)

Sebastian Fecke Diaz

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